Darker Switches
by crazysquidgirl
Summary: Sequel to A Spell Gone Wrong: Claire returns to the other dimension and her sister gets pulled along, but as well as seeing the countries we know and love some more sinister characters start to appear!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello Lovelies! Finally the long awaited sequel to a spell gone wrong is here! So sit back, enjoy, and drop me a line telling me what you think! :)**

Yet another of the monthly world conferences has come to an end and Nations are just now starting to trickle out, and most leave the premises immediately but a few linger behind.

"Alfred where on earth are you going?! We have to leave now or we'll be behind schedule!" yells a certain Englishman.

"Dude chill, I left my coat in one of the rooms over here, it'll just take a sec!" says America continuing down the hallway.

"Hmmph well hurry up" grumbles Britain. He stopped trying to catch up with America and leaned against the wall hallway, the meeting had gone way longer that expected and he was feeling completely knackered, _I wish he wouldn't waste my time like this, that boy needs to learn to respect his elders and to stop throwing his belongings willy nilly all over the place!_ He would of happily continued in his internal tirade, but he was interrupted by something poking his forehead.

"Umm Mr. Britain sir is something wrong, you look pretty angry, maybe you should come with me and Germany to get some pasta!" chirped Italy.

"Err no, I'm completely fine" muttered Britain, "Was there something you wanted?"

"Veh, I just wanted to know if you did that spell mumbo jumbo to try to bring Claire back yet!" asked Italy hopefully. "You just had to wait until the next full moon right? And that was yesterday!"

"Yes that was the time I was waiting for, and I did attempt to cast the spell, but I'm afraid there was no result" said Britain. "I think it'd be best if you just forgot about her chap, I'm sure she's safe and happy back in her own dimension."

"Oh, you think so?" said Italy sadly, no longer bouncing on his heels like before.

"Yes-" England started to say but at the same moment America started yelling, "Hey Artie why are there a couple of chicks in here?".

"What do you mean?! The cleaning staff should all be gone for the night already, no humans are allowed on this floor during meetings!" said England worriedly walking towards the room.

"Dude then why are they in here?" asks America as England catches sight of the two females, they appear to be sound asleep on top of a ratty threadbare couch that is smack-dab in the center of the room.

"Angleterre, where are yoooouuu?" calls a heavily accented voice down the hallway, "Oh bloody hell, I thought he'd already left, quick shut the door!" says Britain. America quickly slams the door shut with a loud smash, "No you dolt, why'd you slam it!" yells Britain angrily.

"Oh hi big brother France!" they hear Italy say. "What are you doing?"

"I might ask the same of Britain, why is he hiding from moi?" says France dramatically holding a hand to his head in mock dispair.

"America said there are some girls in there and he went to look!" says Italy.

"Oh no! We must save the mademoiselles from such brutes!" declares France whirling around and snatching the door open.

"Arrgh France would you just mind your own damm business! I am completely capable of sorting this out on my own, and last time to talked to one of the staff there was nearly an international incident!" gripes Britain attempting to push France back out the door.

France just ducks under Britain's shoulder and approaches the bed and peers down at the pair, but both of their faces are completely covered by hair so it's impossible to tell who they are.

"Would you just leave! If those two wake up in a room full of strange men, I'm am most definitely going to get hell from it and this will be the last time we host in my country!" hisses Britain, and the two start tossing insults back and forth. At this moment Italy pokes his head in and sees America looking at the girls,

"Veh who are they?" he asks.

"We'll lets just wake one up and find out!" declares America and he starts shaking the shoulder of the closest girl. After a few shakes the girl starts to open her eyes, "Claire knock it off, it's still the middle of the ni-" she cuts off after her eyes focus and start to take in the situation, she and her sister are in a strange room she's never seen before, surrounded by strange men, and one of them is grabbing her shoulder. What's a girl to do?

Scream of course, naturally at the top of her lungs.


	2. Chapter 2

After Ellie started screaming America leapt backward knocking over Italy in the process, although Italy had burst into tears so he wasn't paying much attention.

"AMERICA WHAT DID YOU DO!" screamed Britain advancing on said nation who was still sprawled on the floor with his hands over his ears,"Dude I just woke her up and that's it!" yelled America.

Ellie's screams had slowly petered off as she saw that no one was coming to her and her sister's rescue so she started trying to shake Claire awake, "Claire you have to wake up right now! Oh god, did they drug you?! Wake up, wake up, wake up!", Claire slowly rolled over and sat up slowly without opening her eyes,

"Hold on I have to get my ear plugs out, I can't hear a thing your saying" she pulled the plugs out and swung her arm out to drop them on the coffee table that usually lives next to her couch, but was only met with empty space.

"Claire get behind me, we're going to get out of here!" said Ellie pulling the still half asleep Claire behind her,

"What do you mean-" Claire cut herself off as she finally took in her surroundings, and saw the four familiar men who were all worriedly looking at Ellie who looked ready to punch someone in the nose, and still not noticing Claire since she was pinned behind Ellie.

"Italy?! What are you doing here?" said Claire stumbling out from Ellie's reach and staring dumbfounded at the nations.

"V-veh Claire?" said Italy abruptly cutting off the waterworks, he sped across the room and started rapidly babbling as he hugged her for dear life, "Oh I missed you so much! Mr. Britain said you weren't going to come back, and that the spell wouldn't work, and that I should just forget you, but that made me so sad, and and and-"

"Claire what the hell, do you know these people?!" said Ellie as she peeled Italy off Claire and pulled her back,

"Umm yeah I know them-" she started to say before Ellie started yelling again, "Well it doesn't matter, they kidnapped us!"

"Miss please calm down! I can explain all of this if you will just give us the chance!" said Britain trying to calm the situation.

"Britain, not that I'm not happy to see you all again, and I totally am, but how did we get here?" asked Claire.

"Well I was trying to create a spell that would be able to bring you back that doesn't involve the lunar cycles so you would be able to come and go of your own free will, and I thought my last attempt was yet another dud but apparently I was mistaken!" said Britain.

"You've really been trying to figure a spell out that long just for me!" said Claire, she had all but given up on ever seeing the countries again and was astonished to hear that he had been working on this for the weeks and weeks since she had seen them all last.

"Ok why do you all keep calling yourselves countries and talking about spells, what are you people on?!" yelled Ellie not able to keep quiet any longer.

Fifteen minutes later Claire had successfully convinced her that "No they're not terrorists", and "No they didn't kidnap us", "Yes they're actually personifications", and "Yeah he said magic." Surprisingly the whole country thing was easier for her to swallow than the magic thing, although Claire left out the whole tv show thing since that would just make it sound all the crazier.

"So this crybaby is the guy you've been moping over?" said Ellie looking over Italy and looking disappointed, since the only thing she had had to work with was brown eyes and hair, and he's Italian, she had conjured an image of a buff six foot Italian with dreamy eyes and ruffly hair, and this blubbery scrawny boy was not measuring up, not by a long shot.

"For the last time I was not moping!" said Claire stomping her foot and huffing annoyed. "Honey da Nile is a river and you are positively drowning in it" said Ellie knowingly.

"I must agree with your lovely sister!" France said coming up, "You shouldn't smother your feelings of love or you'll end up a miserable stick in the mud like poor Angleterre!" "Hey!" yelled Britain halfheartedly, but he didn't want France getting him involved so for once he let it go.

"I know right!" said Ellie happy to finally have someone who agreed with her, after deciding they weren't all serial killer/rapists/terrorists, she had started getting along swimmingly with France for some reason. The two of them retreated to a corner of the room to plot together and Claire was able to finally talk to Britain about more serious matters.

"Hey Britain, not that I'm not grateful for all the trouble you've gone to, but you can send us back again at some point right?" asked Claire. "Oh yes, it will just be a bit different from last time since we're not depending on the lunar cycles any longer. I had to do some tweaking but it should all work out in the end" said Britain sounding confident. "Oh that's great! I'm sure my mother would kill herself worrying if both me and my sister went missing!" said Claire relieved.

"Dudes can we get going already, weren't you flipping out about being late for something?" said America bored of listening to the combination of lovely dovey drivel coming for Ellie and France's corner and the magic theories from Britain.

"Oh bloody hell I completely forgot! I have to get to that meeting!" said Britain pushing America out the door into the hallway and starting for the exit, "You two come along and we will figure out accommodations later on" he yelled back. He was behind on paperwork to begin with since he spent so much time on research for the spells, and he had encountered all manners of unprecedented problems. The last and finally successful try had taken quiet a few ancient ingredients and incantations he had never tampered with before, he was pretty sure that he got all the portals back to normal from all the dimension hopping, but a certain something kept niggling in the back of his mind like he had forgotten something important, but he brushed it off thinking it was nothing and continued down the hallway with Claire, Italy, and France trying to keep up.

**I'm going to try to keep updating regularly with this, but reviews do help me to write faster so please tell me what you think!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Just a quick warning, this chapter is a bit darker than my usual and has a mention of blood, so be warned! Scroll further down for my usual author's note.**

Fifteen minutes later after piling into two cars, they came to a screeching halt in front of an English parliament building; Britain leapt from the car, raced up the steps to the entrance, and disappeared from sight.

"Well that was certainly considerate of him, now wasn't it?" said Claire sarcastically, "What are we supposed to do now?". Claire, Britain, and America had all piled into the Brit's car with France, Italy, and Ellie following in another just behind them, and they were now idling in front of the building's entrance. "Iggy said earlier that his meeting would only be like twenty minutes, and we were going to grab some munchies afterwards, so let's just go crash at that park over there!" said America while sliding over into the driver's seat.

After yelling out the window to France who was driving the second car, he swiftly maneuvered out of the parking lot and across the street to the park. After France pulled into the adjacent space, Italy and Claire immediately spilled out of the car, and Italy pulled Ellie off to the playground chattering happily, while Claire stalked the two plotting on how to get them to realize they like each other.

**Meanwhile in the meeting~**

Britain was sitting in a conference room with several other sharply dressed individuals listening to an imposing man with a military air talking about several strange occurrences in the area,

"-several strange killings in the past few days all in the London area, but all the victims had one thing in common, they were all wanted by the police for recent crimes, arson, grand larceny, and kidnapping were among the charges." He broke off there to answer some questions, "Do we have information on the killer's appearance, and how were they killed?" asked Britain.

"They were all stabbed to death, and we were able to acquire this surveillance footage from a deli across the street of the last murder but it's not of the best quality and hard to make out, Mr. Kirkland" said the man picking up a remote from the table.

A video screen that was hanging dormant on the wall flicked to life and started playing a grainy video clip, it looked out onto the entrance of a dark alley, and suddenly a young looking man ran down the street at a breakneck pace and disappeared down the alley. A few seconds later a new person entered the screen but at a slow confident pace, almost a saunter. Just as he rounded the corner of the alley the viewers just glimpsed something glimmering from his hand, and Britain quickly realized it was a small knife. A few minutes went by and finally someone emerged from the alley, but there was only one figure, the second confident one. He was twirling the knife and something seemed to be dripping from his fingers and just as he was about to leave the sight of the camera, he glanced straight into the lens, and his eyes seemed to shine with an almost pinkish gleam, and then the clip cut short. The man backed up the clip and paused to the moment when the figure looked into the camera,

"He seems to be 5'9, has blond hair, and red eyes, but that's all we've been able to scrounge from the clip, he must think of himself as some sort of vigilante because he's only gone after criminals so far, but that may change, you never can tell with these."

The other's started to talk to each other, stating what needed to be done and who else to alert, but Britain was lost in thought and was slowly starting to realize something terrible. As soon as he saw the knife that niggling worry from earlier reemerged but it wasn't fully realized until he saw those pink eyes, and the height of the man was the breaking point, that was his exact same height and he instantly knew what they were dealing with, but kept it to himself and somehow managed to stay calm until the meeting was over. A couple minutes later as the others fell into exchanging pleasantries he quickly excused himself and raced out of the building to the others, but found no cars out front. After a rushed phone conversation with America he started jogging towards the park.

**Back at the park~**

"Was that Angleterre?" inquired France while lounging against a tree watching America's conversation, "Yeah but he sounded pretty upset, I wonder what happened to the dude?" said America sounding serious for once. Meanwhile across the way, Italy was alternating between pushing Ellie and Claire on the swings, the two laughing while watching him run between the two of them.

"He probably just got scolded for bringing tea into a meeting again, he seems to delight in numbing his tastebuds with such a low class beverage, but who knows that's probably the only way he can stomach the stuff he trys to call food." said France watching the girls on the swings.

"I don't know dude, I think it was something different this time, I've haven't heard him sound that worried since forever ago" said America putting the phone in his pocket.

"America!" came a shout from the entrance of the park, Britain was striding towards them, huffing and puffing from his exertions. "Gather the girls and Italy up, we need to get back to my house immediately." "Dude what's the matter, you look like you've seen a ghost!" said America waving the others over. "You could say that, but we must get going, Claire I need you to come with me back to my residence, I need to check something." said Britain leading them all back to the parking lot, although a bit slower since he was winded from running around so much. "What's up?" asked Claire running to catch up to Britain, "I fear something has gone wrong with the portals I've been using, I just hope I'm wrong" says Britain uneasily.

**Third ****chappie**** done! I hope I'm not getting too serious too fast, I'm planning on still having the usual banter and fluff between the nations throughout this story, but I have a bit of a plot to work with finally! Can any of you guess who was in the footage? (I practically spelled it out for you ****haha****)**


	4. Chapter 4

**At Britain's house~**

The two girls and countries had all gathered in a study upstairs to wait, as soon as they had arrived at Britain's residence he had rushed off to make a phone call leaving them to their own devices. But instead of the usual loud arguments and banter that usually started within five seconds when America was even in the same time zone as any over country, the study was deathly quiet.

America and France were standing near a window talking in low voices, while Italy rocked back and forth on his heels nervously fidgeting with his hands across the room, and Claire and Ellie were sitting on an overstuffed couch, becoming more and more uncomfortable in the strange atmosphere that the day had been enveloped in ever since Britain came racing back to them at the park.

"Seriously, what has you guys so wound up and what's going on, I thought you said the portals were safe?!" asked Ellie.

France broke off talking to America and walked over to the couch,  
"I don't know much about Angleterre's "magic", he said with airquotes, "But dangerous things have happened before because of it, so he's just fussing like the worrywart he is, and there is absolutely nothing for you to worry yourself about my dear." he said patting Ellie's head and then resumed his muttered conversation with America, but he didn't have his usual cocky swagger, or confidence as he spoke, so the girls immediately knew something was had both tried to talk to Britain on the way over, but he refused to speak, and just kept saying he had to check something.

Ellie sank back into the couch not reassured in the least by France's words, and Claire worriedly watched Italy's fidgeting. She had tried to get him to sit down, but he ended up practically vibrating in his seat since he kept bouncing his feet anxiously, so in the end she just let him be.  
Five more minutes went by, and suddenly with a thumping sound they heard Britain running up the stairs and he came into the room looking worn out, worried, and very pale.

"You ok dude?" asked America in a much less exuberant voice than usual. "It's not me that's the problem, dozens of people have been killed all over the world in the past two days, all criminals, but the killers are all connected." said Britain. "I've just finished talking to Germany on the phone, there have been numerous reports of murders in Berlin, all the victims were criminals as well, and that coincides perfectly with the murders here in London."

"You never said anything about people getting killed!" said Claire sounding scared.

"I needed to be sure before I dragged any of you into this!" said Britain, "It seems with the last portal opening something went wrong, and instead of closing, it just moved into another dimension, letting them into our world."

"Them?" asked Ellie confused.

"Merde, no, no, no" said France looking stricken, "How many got through?"

"I can't know for sure, we need to gather the countries in an emergency meeting and tally up the killings and figure out who's gotten through." said Britain, he turned and gestured for them to follow him back downstairs.

"Italy, will you take Claire and Ellie back to your home and keep them there for a few days?" asked Britain while he threw on a coat and grabbed a briefcase off of the floor where he had dropped it earlier.

"Veh, of course, I'll keep them safe!" said Italy looking happy that he had something to do. "Come on you two, lets go home!" he said dragging the two outside. "Wait Italy, we don't even know what's going on yet!" Claire said trying to dig her heels in, but Italy was determined to get them out of there asap. Italy was relieved to be able to do something to help, and plastered on on his usual happy charm and grins, but inside he was bubbling with worry, especially after hearing that the murders are happening in Germany as well.

"I'll call you later tonight Claire, just go with your sister!" said Britain as he, France, and America, loaded into his car. Italy had somehow hailed a taxi out of nowhere, and as he ushered the girls into the car, Ellie looked out the back and saw France looking through the window of Britain's retreating car, and he gave her a small wave and encouraging smile before they drove out of sight.

**Heheh, yeah I suck. Suck, suck, suck. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and got me off my butt to write this, and I plan on updating again as soon as I can! I recently started an internship, and with school starting up I'll be pretty busy, but I have to keep this story going! Pretty please with pasta on top leave me a review telling me what you think, comments, queries, concerns, conundrums, paradoxes, or just whatever! Reviews keep my writing juice going!**


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